Metro Times (Detroit, MI) - Rotten Tomatoes

Metro Times (Detroit, MI)

Tomatometer-approved publication
Rating
Title/Year
Author
1
Parallel Mothers (Madres paralelas) (2021)

George Elkind

If Parallel seems not to pause and reflect often enough, it mirrors in this the ways in which we so often never get to -- while pressing a case for doing so all the same.
Posted Jan 27, 2022
2
The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)

George Elkind

Boiling Shakespeare's play down to its most elemental parts, Joel Cohen's Tragedy of Macbeth is an exercise in lavish, purposeful minimalism executed from a place of experience and taste.
Posted Jan 20, 2022
3
Drive My Car (2021)

George Elkind

Digressive, literary, expansive in feeling, narrow in scope: with hardly a plot to burden it, Drive My Car is the filmed work this year that best offers up the pleasures of psychological-realist literature.
Posted Jan 14, 2022
4
Licorice Pizza (2021)

George Elkind

By trusting in his characters, both as they're scripted and as brought into being by the film's brimming performers, Anderson banks rightly on the potent reserve of lived experience and feeling at the movie's core.
Posted Jan 6, 2022
5
Being the Ricardos (2021)

Eileen G'Sell

Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos isn't great for reasons that are interesting, and is downright bad for reasons that are, perhaps, even more interesting.
Posted Dec 28, 2021
6
The Matrix Resurrections (2021)

George Elkind

Resurrections by and large feels lively in its willingness to remix and upend precedents in substance and in style.
Posted Dec 28, 2021
7
Detention (2021)

George Elkind

In sidelining this sort of haughty regard for legalistic or precisely objective forms of truth, Procession sprints ahead of most nonfiction filmmaking -- and most journalism, too -- by actually contending with what counts.
Posted Dec 17, 2021
8
Red Rocket (2021)

George Elkind

A rowdy, endlessly funny work that accumulates depth with sublime elegance, through its patterns and at its edges.
Posted Dec 9, 2021
9
House of Gucci (2021)

George Elkind

While Gaga brings the meatiest performance in terms of embodying what both spans all this and should be the film's central question -- the abiding and enduring question of what class is -- the movie feels, in the end, confused.
Posted Nov 24, 2021
10
Spencer (2021)

George Elkind

Meant to subvert more standard royal depictions but without much more to offer, this effort at empathy and humanization proves both obvious and dully repetitious, undeserving the considerable talent on hand.
Posted Nov 18, 2021
11
The French Dispatch (2021)

George Elkind

The director's style has evolved to a level of finesse and personal peculiarity that leaves him stylistically alone among his peers, resulting in works that simply don't look like anyone else's.
Posted Nov 4, 2021
12
Last Night in Soho (2021)

George Elkind

The technical workmanship would feel impressive were Wright's vision not so threadbare.
Posted Oct 29, 2021
13
Dune (2021)

George Elkind

While there's much to give Dune credit for as a professional achievement, it's becoming increasingly tough to celebrate cinema that aspires to so little beyond its own sense of scale - or to applaud works that refuse to resolve in a single installment.
Posted Oct 21, 2021
14
Titane (2021)

Eileen G'Sell

For those of us who like to think while we squirm, to reconsider what makes us suddenly recoil, Ducournau's latest is a galvanizing trip.
Posted Oct 15, 2021
15
No Time To Die (2021)

George Elkind

[No Time to Die attempts] to "modernize" the James Bond character by stripping him of traits deemed problematic while also clinging steadfastly (and often embarrassingly) to the series' most meaningless of traditions.
Posted Oct 7, 2021
16
Malignant (2021)

George Elkind

In being willing to be gross, occasionally shocking, and rightly histrionic in its delivery -- and in balancing so itself well -- Malignant finds an unlikely path to revivifying and defamiliarizing a goodly number of clichés.
Posted Sep 30, 2021
17
—
Cry Macho (2021)

George Elkind

Trading in broad symbology but rendered in personal terms, Cry Macho's a modest, plain, and earnest work that doesn't just know exactly what it's doing; it directs its attention precisely where it wants to.
Posted Sep 23, 2021
18
The Card Counter (2021)

George Elkind

As a performer associated less with pathos than his looks and easy charm, Isaac demonstrates admirable control here; his poker face in this case is a full-body endeavor.
Posted Sep 16, 2021
19
Candyman (2021)

George Elkind

In lacking an animating mystery, thematic question, or good enough style to justify their slaughter, Candyman's carcasses hit the ground without much resonance; each killing reads more like a job than a source of pleasure, righteous vengeance, or release.
Posted Sep 2, 2021
20
The Night House (2021)

Eileen G'Sell

As a gripping exploration of how grief can twist our clearest perceptions, it's a thrilling row across the waters of marital terror.
Posted Aug 26, 2021
21
The Suicide Squad (2021)

George Elkind

Gunn's assembled a bundle of messages here through the songs and stories his handiwork contains. In doing so, he's painted an illuminating portrait of who its maker is - but he hasn't crafted the kind of picture he should want to.
Posted Aug 24, 2021
22
Annette (2021)

George Elkind

While gilding nothing, Annette presents a world that's alluring, honestly depicted, inquisitive, and cutting, owning up to what most should feel now as an omnipresent existential pull.
Posted Aug 13, 2021
23
The Green Knight (2021)

George Elkind

As the film stands, its quest feels more aimless than even Gawain at its open: a kind of aesthetic tourism that's only so productive.
Posted Aug 5, 2021
24
Old (2021)

George Elkind

Though never shy about its origins in a schlocky, high-concept premise, it's Old's eagerness to wring the most from it that ultimately frees it -- specifically, to turn on a dime between laughs, thrills, and quiet contemplation.
Posted Jul 29, 2021
25
No Sudden Move (2020)

George Elkind

No Sudden Move glides along like a skater on a rail; bumps are felt, a sense of precarity persists unforgotten, but its momentum, poise, and balance are maintained.
Posted Jul 22, 2021
26
Pig (2021)

George Elkind

For all the film brings in technique and imagination, it lacks strikingly in self-awareness.
Posted Jul 22, 2021
27
In the Heights (2021)

George Elkind

These actors have to contend, though, with a script and lyrics that are often boneheadedly literal, with music that often serves to narrate, without imagination, the action.
Posted Jul 2, 2021
28
Luca (2021)

George Elkind

Outside of these small peaks, though, the movie simply doesn't hit emotionally as it ought to, conveying close connection.
Posted Jul 2, 2021
29
F9 (2021)

George Elkind

F9 seems to be constantly working to resuscitate itself as a franchise when it could simply live, breathe, and drive ahead -- as a film.
Posted Jul 2, 2021
30
Born in Flames (1983)

Greg Baise

Born in Flames ignites an explosive feminist critique of social issues that continues to resonate in the present day.
Posted Mar 19, 2021
31
Da 5 Bloods (2020)

Herb Boyd

Few filmmakers are as adept at weaving the past and present as Spike Lee. His most recent project, Da 5 Bloods, is exemplary of this, as well as his occasional nods to and riffs on cinematic history.
Posted Jun 25, 2020
32
3/5
The Trip to Greece (2020)

Cameron Meier

The oddest thing about the Trip movies is that they are food films, travelogues, personal essays, comedies and dramas. ... But [the formula] usually [works], thanks mostly to the two actors' chemistry.
Posted May 21, 2020
33
Ovid and the Art of Love (2020)

George Elkind

We're forced to meet a text between where it's from - or what it's depicting - and the place we sit or stand. The blend ends up being... enough to give this feature life - if not quite enough of it for its nearly two-hour length.
Posted May 15, 2020
34
The Booksellers (2020)

George Elkind

While this hazy, shifting quality lets The Booksellers feel lighter on its feet, it also makes its inquiries seem insufficiently honed.
Posted May 8, 2020
35
Beanpole (Dylda) (2020)

George Elkind

What results is a consistently unsteady, heated-but-hazy emotional air, and a film that's a bit bullish in its running time and scenework - especially considering its structure.
Posted Apr 23, 2020
36
The Wild Goose Lake (Nan fang che zhan de ju hui) (2020)

George Elkind

The film's tensions stem from the impermanent, impressive ways its resonances flicker, the ways its images are captured, and the way, never less than successful, that it makes familiar scenes seem new.
Posted Apr 16, 2020
37
2/5
Wendy (2020)

Cameron Meier

Wendy's ... ingredients never congeal, leaving us with a visually intriguing but tiresome tale that disappoints its fantastical premise.
Posted Mar 11, 2020
38
Sonic the Hedgehog (2020)

George Elkind

Though better and more winning than what might have been expected, Sonic's a little too unwitting to outrun its own self.
Posted Feb 20, 2020
39
Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020)

George Elkind

There's some good wallpaper here and there, but its aesthetics still fail to coalesce enough to ever generate an appealing, involving world.
Posted Feb 14, 2020
40
63 Up (2019)

George Elkind

Though no one perspective is universal, 63 Up's remains admirably considered, sweeping, and reflective, which is all just as it should be. It's less an elegy than an ode to life.
Posted Jan 23, 2020
41
Underwater (2020)

George Elkind

Though there's much to like or simply appreciate in terms of the film's fleeting smoothness and fits of invention, Underwater's overshadowed by its own pervasive shallowness.
Posted Jan 23, 2020
42
American Factory (2019)

George Elkind

The result is a story balanced enough to let its themes and outcomes speak largely for themselves, offering a lucid sense of who its people are.
Posted Jan 2, 2020
43
Honey Boy (2019)

George Elkind

Conveying true introspection less than public apologia, Honey Boy offers LaBeouf a chance to pivot, adjusting performance of his own brand.
Posted Jan 2, 2020
44
Little Women (2019)

George Elkind

Little Women glows throughout with this abashed, still-beaming self-possession, as much a feature of its direction as of any of its performers.
Posted Jan 2, 2020
45
Atlantics (2019)

George Elkind

The result is a work that feels free to move and change while remaining tonally of a piece, able to shock at times without feeling for a moment false. Atlantics wouldn't be itself directed any other way...
Posted Dec 12, 2019
46
Doctor Sleep (2019)

George Elkind

In place of what Doctor Sleep puts its condescending, blinded faith in, I sympathize with Jack, and Dan - or Danny - I'd rather cling to drink or ghosts.
Posted Dec 12, 2019
47
Marriage Story (2019)

George Elkind

Though it may sound dour (admittedly, it's not upbeat), Marriage Story glides by and watches terrifically well, despite its heavy topic.
Posted Dec 12, 2019
48
High Flying Bird (2019)

George Elkind

Sincere, ardent, and thorough in its examinations without ever making the characters' stories feel like ours.
Posted Dec 10, 2019
49
Harriet (2019)

George Elkind

Pitting a loosely rendered historical figure against a surly, vengeful fop resentful of her hard-won freedom, Harriet (as in Tubman) is far less than what it could have been.
Posted Dec 5, 2019
50
Earthquake Bird (2019)

Gabriel Silver

Earthquake Bird is an enjoyable neo-noir film, with enough twists and turns to leave you thinking long after the ending.
Posted Nov 20, 2019